Robert Augustus Chesebrough, a 22 year-old British chemist, travelled to Titusville, a small Pennsylvania town where petroleum had recently been discovered. Chesebrough, who had been making kerosene from the oil of sperm whales, was eager to learn what other products could be made from petroleum. Shortly after arriving in Titusville he became intrigued by a naturally-occurring byproduct of the oil drilling process that seemed to have remarkable skin-healing properties